Workforce Management Planner

**KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES**
- Forecasting and planning to ensure that there is the right number of employees, at the right time, with the right skills set, scheduled to maintain service objectives and to highlight any over and understaffing. The forecast must be in line with the variance targets set within the area for each business environment.
- Prepare a 13-week rolling view of the forecast to highlight FTE requirement with the over staffing and understaffing picture, which will inform the recruitment and training process. It should include key contact centre metrics which may include but are not limited to absenteeism, attrition, and shrinkage.
- Responsible for providing input for the budget headcount submissions annually.
- Make recommendations for adjusting staffing levels to maximise productivity and profitability.
- Engage with relevant stakeholders to manage forecast and planning impact.
- Delivery of forecast variance reports to WFM manager(s) and business.
- Reporting on operating level agreement (OLA) metrics and providing feedback to WFM management and business.
- Manage exception requests pre-publication, update schedules and responds to escalated issues and ad-hoc requests, especially bulk activities.
- Generation and publication of scheduled to employees and management.
- To help with the integration and implementation of new contact centre technologies.
- Manage, update and process WFM logs and work items allocated from business, and resolve within TAT SL.
- Manage relationships with stakeholders.
- Regular operational and tactical feedback meetings with WFM teams management and business about future planning and current performance outputs and requirements as per the communication matrix.
- Run ad-hoc scenarios within own portfolio of clients.
- Calculate and provide leave quotas; process on WFM systems as required.
- To provide root-cause analysis and feedback to the business about the reasons for a variance to forecast.
- To look for constant improvement and opportunities for cost reduction and increased efficiency.
- Incorporate attrition and shrinkage in the forecast applied seasonally.
- Time in motion studies and benchmarking to establish optimal occupancy.
- Assumes and performs other duties and responsibilities not specifically outlined herein, but which are logically and adequately inherent to the position.

**SPECIFIC SKILLS REQUIRED**
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Drive and motivation.
- Analysing skills.
- Excellent interpersonal skills.
- Planning and organising; the ability to drive capacity plans through all levels of the business.
- Stress tolerance and ability to work under pressure.
- Have an understanding of technical skills and call centre technologies.
- Have common knowledge of call centre management and all related calculations.
- Have common knowledge of various forecasting, scheduling and WFM software.
- Ability to prioritise workload, meet deadlines and perform multiple tasks with attention to detail.
- Ability to communicate call centre data/forecasts to all levels of employees in an understandable fashion.
- Ability to work independently with mínimal supervision.
- To have problem-solving capability.

**TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE**
- At least **5 years experience in a Workforce Management** department of which **3 years must be in planning and forecasting**:

- Advanced knowledge of Workforce Management methodologies and principles across multiple channels, to plan manually and to use a system and catering for various sites.
- Proven track record of variance scores achieved within industry standard range and acceptable to company standards
- Working expertise with Microsoft Office, including advanced level of proficiency and hands-on experience with MS Excel and exceptional data handling skills (i.e. must be able to efficiently and effectively manage/manipulate data from multiple sources)
- Solid understanding of outbound/inbound blended environments
- Experience in dealing with relevant stakeholders, e.g. workforce management, contact centers
- Avaya/CMS, IEX, Qstory, Genesys, Verint, Qcontact experience and knowledge
- Grade 12 (Standard 10) with University Entrance (NQF4)
- Experience with preview, predictive and power dialer; WFM planning and understanding campaign management

**WORKING HOURS: Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm with flexibility as the company requires